How It Works
How Nakshatra actually calculates your reading
No part of your reading is written fresh by an AI model. Every result comes from two real, independently-checkable inputs run through a fixed set of classical rules — the same inputs always produce the same output.
The two real inputs
1. Your Sun & Moon sign
Computed from real planetary ecliptic longitudes at your exact birth moment, using Astronomy Engine — the same open-source astronomical engine professional astronomy software relies on for planetary positions. Give it a date, time, and place, and it returns real coordinates.
2. The current real Moon phase
Recalculated every time you open the app — it's today's actual Moon phase, not a stored or invented value.
Those two real inputs pick which pre-written template lines are shown to you. Nothing in your report is generated on the fly by a language model — the underlying rule engine is deterministic by design, not just by default.
Sidereal system & the Lahiri ayanamsa
Western tropical astrology measures positions against the seasons (0° Aries is always the spring equinox). Vedic astrology instead uses the sidereal system, which measures against the actual fixed background of stars. Over centuries, precession has pulled these two systems apart by roughly 24 degrees today.
Nakshatra uses the Lahiri ayanamsa — the specific correction value that converts a tropical position into a sidereal one. It's the ayanamsa most widely used in Indian Vedic astrology and the one adopted by the Indian government's own Calendar Reform Committee, which is why your Sun or Moon sign here can come out a sign earlier than what a Western tropical horoscope would tell you for the same birth details. Neither is "wrong" — they're two different reference frames for the same real planetary positions.
What each feature is actually doing
Birth chart & weekly horoscope
Your Sun sign, Moon sign, and (when you provide an exact birth time) Ascendant, feed a template library keyed to real astronomical facts — sign element, planetary rulership, and the live Moon phase. Two people with the same Sun and Moon sign, checking on the same week, see the same underlying template selection.
Palm reading
This is a photo-assisted classical questionnaire, not biometric analysis. Your photo helps you confirm what your own life, heart, head, and fate lines actually look like — the interpretation itself comes from a fixed classical-palmistry rule table matched to your answers. The photo is processed entirely on your device and is never uploaded anywhere.
Compatibility
Built on real classical astrological aspects — conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition, and the minor aspects — calculated from the angular distance between two people's Sun and Moon signs. This is standard classical technique, just computed at the sign level rather than exact degree-to-degree, which is a reasonable simplification for this version of the app.
Year Ahead
Built from the real current transiting positions of Jupiter and Saturn — recalculated from live astronomical data, not a static yearly template.